


goodbye yellow brick road

by dancingwiththewind (highfaenyx)



Series: queens and kingdoms [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Labyrinth (1986), The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
Genre: Gen, Sarah Williams cameo, Susan Pevensie cameo, character study of a kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highfaenyx/pseuds/dancingwiththewind
Summary: I am leaping in the dark, hoping, daring to hope to catch an ever-slipping thread of the way that leads home.
Series: queens and kingdoms [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029450
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	goodbye yellow brick road

I think I know all of the roads on this planet — and even beyond.

I’ve treaded them all. Black asphalt highways, stone pavements, narrow paths in the snow, red bricks and marble hallways — but there is only one road made of bricks of the most bright yellow. So yellow that my eyes were blinded the first time I saw it.

Impossible to miss; even more impossible to forget.

I don’t dream about it. I don’t remember my dreams anyway, as they escape my elusive memory the moment I open my eyes. I don’t dream of poppy fields, high walls of an emerald palace at the end of the road I so desperately try to find.

Or I tell myself so; maybe I see them every time I close my eyes, as if I could touch them with my fingers right here and right now, and wake up grasping the empty air instead.

I had been doomed since a long, long time ago.

Have you ever tried to find a place without a pinpoint on any map in the world, that doesn’t have an entry in any search engine, that you cannot find with a compass or a sextant? All you have are legends and your memory, which becomes more and more blurry with every passing day.

I am leaping in the dark, hoping, daring to hope to catch an ever-slipping thread of the way that leads _home_.

On some days, I find myself lying on a dirty floor, surrounded by needles, ampules and empty bottles. My eyes are dilated, my veins bruised, my mind misty and unfocused. I am addicted, I am obsessed, I am sick - but I don’t care for the drugs or alcohol.

I am longing for my yellow brick road and the emerald castle in the endspiel.

I crave for a friendship that shatters the stars and an adversary which would challenge me, truly; for a fairy song in the woods, for mountain roads which lead to castles of magic and bone, for crystal peaks and shoes which carry you to the ends of the world - you would only need to ask.

Another days I lose myself in the blinding lights of dance floors, mad eyes, frantic movements, whispers _junkie_ behind my back. I laugh and tell them - of yellow brick roads, wise scarecrows, brave lions, gentle knights made of steel and magicians with no magic.

They call me _a mad girl_ instead.

I wonder if this is how Alice Liddell felt after Wonderland.

I wonder if the Wonderland is real, too; if Alice, just like me, is still searching for a narrow rabbit hole lading somewhere she could call _home._

Any road I am on leads to destruction, but I am hopeless, and I cannot stop.

I almost die — but almost does not count, and death was never a way out, never really an option, and I cannot stop. And then — in a haze of another hangover, in a city and place I can neither recall nor forget, someone slips a deck of cards into my pliant palm, and closes my fingers over it. I look around, and I see a woman.

She is unearthly beautiful — or, perhaps, it is all my blurry gaze. Her posture is regal, and her eyes are clear and sharp; I even dream a crown of pines on her head, but that is all drugs and alcohol in my blood. I stare, and she smiles.

“Time to be a queen of your kingdom, Dorothy Gale.”

I don’t question how she knows my name, how she found me in the place even I don’t remember, how I almost know who she is, but the knowledge evades me like a skilled warrior evades a sloppy blade.

Instead, I ask, _will you take me there?_

She doesn’t answer, but says, “Take the cards. They will tell you the truth.”

She turns to leave, but I clutch the hem of her dress. She has a horn hanging on her waistband — an unusual choice for a party downtown. But I am too angry and too sad to register, and I desperately beg and plead and cry instead.

“You have to find your way on your own.” She shrugs my hands off, and leaves me a messy pile on the floor, but cups my cheek in a tender touch of her fingers. “Come see me when you’re ready.”

Sober, I toss the deck into my cupboard, far away from my view.

Next evening, I crack it open.

I learn magic. It takes me days, months, years, but in the end I can wield cards and lay them in front of anyone who yearns for a road ahead. I am a light, a torch, a shimmering star guiding their paths — and yet I am never skilful enough to light up my own.

Sometimes, the cards I use change their shape when I look at them. The Hermit becomes a scarecrow, the Strength moulds into a figure of a lion, the Hanged Man looks like he is made of tin. Looking at the Fool is like staring at a polished glass then.

_I have treaded so far, and you say I’ve only began?_

I am sad no longer, I am angry, I am mad, and so I persist.

Cards are a means to an end, an instrument of telling a truth one knows but does not accept, and I have learned how to channel that power to let people find their own way of things. So I do that — I help: wives to leave their abusive husbands, girls to gain their confidence, lovers to reunite, enemies to reconcile, and one day their gratitude grows into something more, something bigger.

Something that can give — gives — my life a meaning beyond the road of yellow bricks, and that is so much better than the blurry haze of a drugged mind.

I stay.

My heart is an ever-aching wound, a scar that will not heal properly, perhaps ever — but I have lived with it for long enough to _learn_ how to bear, and smile, and help the next person I meet.

That is enough. I am enough.

I see myself in the Wheel of Fortune; in the Justice; in the Devil and in the Moon, and when I look in the mirror I see a crown of emeralds and a dress of poppy fields, fit for the Empress.

I see my friends and enemies in all and every person I meet: in their wit, their courage, their strength, and my love for them is mirrored in people that share their stories with me.

It is enough.

I enter a bookshop hidden in the labyrinth of Scottish streets one day, and there I find two women laughing in unison at a silliest of jokes, and it is too irresistible not to join. So I give in, and sit by the table.

Both women are ethereal, unearthly, _magical._ When I look into their eyes, I see walls of ancient castles at a seashore far, far away; I see throne rooms defying laws of gravity; and I see compassion and kindness and _understanding._ Like they know — know how it feels to be stranded away from _home,_ to be eternally missing that freedom running up your veins.

They tell me of lions, witches, wardrobes; of labyrinths, fae and fairy tales. They tell me of grief and loss, of despair and loneliness, of courage and wit and persistence, landscapes of stories and landscapes of universes, and when they are finished, I tell them my story, too.

Of girls and magicians, of poppy fields and friendships of loyalty beyond all; of addictions and emptiness, of cards and people and stories that they tell, and when I am done, my head feels the weight of a crown made of pure emerald.

“I will show you the decks,” Susan says, and stands up. “As I’ve promised.”

Sarah raises a brow. “I’ve helped her,” Susan answers her silent question. “As you’ve helped me.”

The fae queen smiles. “Indeed.”

_They understand_ , I think, and smile. _How it is to be a queen of tales and legends in a fragile human form._ They are ethereal, unearthly, magical.

And I am, too.

In the morning, I sip tea, sitting on the floor of my flat, waiting for the sunrise.

I close my eyes, and a yellow road appears at my feet. I open my eyes, my heart skipping a beat, and it is still there; I can even swear that I see a silhouette of an emerald castle in the distance.

I get up. There are scones and mulled wine and fae dust brought by Sarah’s husband, promised in the evening. There are Sarah, Susan, anyone else who walks through the heavy door of the bookshop next, waiting to tell another story; waiting for another story of mine. There are decks to be opened, cards to be revealed, there is a _home_ on this side of the trench, and the yellow brick road…

_I wear a crown of emeralds, and a summer dress reminiscing fields of poppy, and my shoes are faster than the wind._

…in the end, the yellow brick road is always with me.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that we all find our yellow brick road, in the end.
> 
> Kudos and comments are welcome :)


End file.
